


Bridges

by koi_ling



Series: Nothing Is Gonna Take You from My Side [7]
Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, Arguing, Break Up, Explicit Language, M/M, Musicians, Unresolved Tension, best friends more like bad friends minyoon, the characters are drama queens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 19:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9507848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koi_ling/pseuds/koi_ling
Summary: Mino is not happy of being right about something.Seungyoon is not happy, period.





	

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning: I plotted this fic around may 2016 so I had no idea some things could collide with reality… this chapter is ? a mess. Don’t read if you’re not ready to talk about possible **SPOILER !!** disbandment and Taehyun leaving **!! END SPOILER** but it’s also a very relevant chapter for the series. That’s why I postponed it for so long.

On many aspects, Mino is just a guy of his age. He still thinks he’s a small kid to his parents and uses it to obtain a little more of showy affection, he doesn’t stop eating candies as if he won’t gain any weight and soak his meals in Coca-Cola; he might got jaded by real world, by the hours of work he does every day and the fact he’s living by his own instead of being home, but that doesn’t make him an adult. He struggles with the desire of playing, the wish of plunging into music and re-emerging as a new person, and the responsibilities piling up every day.

He just wants to have fun, mostly, like his future isn’t at stake and he runs the competition that life is for the sake of a good laugh. He writes his music because he wants to. Because he terribly – ardently – achingly longs to be someone who can count on a crowd that will appreciate his talent, because that’s the only option he can think of when he mulls over a hypothetic profession. He doesn’t want to be a white collar with no fun, no colour in his life. 

He writes music because that’s an implied promise he and Seungyoon have, like a game that comes before any other they have played – and it’s been so long, sometimes he thinks how frightening it is to be this loyal for such a long time, and then waking up in a world that’s upside down. 

He is young and makes mistakes. He can’t blame himself when he loses sight of their boundaries, forgets about what they’re supposed to _have_ as friends, and Mino neglects him after that damned afternoon. He doesn’t want to think of his feelings – an elephant in the room that he ignored until it stepped on his heart with all his weight, and now it’s suffocating him – so he does what he knows best. He flirts and plays with girls he doesn’t really care about, wastes nights on cheap alcohol, spends the rest of his days working or at Jiho’s studio. He avoids their place, he avoids his memories of that day. His music has never felt this distant to him, but he still tries.

Mino is, like every guy of his age, always pleased of every catch he makes. He prides himself of how easy it comes to him, to be this smooth when needed, disregarding his clumsy and naturally funny side to act hotter, manlier, a bad guy no one can resist to. He loves to be right, to win easily, to be the one in charge of the situation. He forgets himself in every stranger he meets, smiles broadly, big laugh and sunshine eyes. It makes him feel loved, even just for an instant. 

He’s not happy, though, of what they’ve become. He says he doesn’t want to run away from Seungyoon but he does, and this time it’s even harder than when Seungyoon came out, this time it’s something he can’t escape even if he runs away from him. This love has always been with Mino for all his life – and it is frightening, how loyal he is, and waking up in a world that’s just the same and he’s suddenly the one upside down, thrown out from his safe place, his feelings displayed instead of being a dark blur in the background. A person’s heart is scarier than anything, but losing Seungyoon is scarier. 

And for once, he’s not happy of being right. Usually he would boast about it, but not for this one. There is no solace in funding out about Seungyoon and Taehyun.

 

 

Despite the few times he and Seungyoon meet, Mino sees it at once. There is something that just doesn’t sit right with Seungyoon. He hasn’t looked this miserable in ages – or never, as far as Mino can remember – even if he wasn’t exactly happy the past weeks either. It’s tough on them both and Mino knows they have to talk sooner or later, because they clearly aren’t fine with this situation of wary silence between them. But Seungyoon was already preoccupied with something else, even more aloof and lost in his own world than before, so Mino decided to continue his coward conduct. Their talk could wait.

Today is worse than any other day, though. Seungyoon doesn’t easily show what crosses his mind, he is a walking mystery that conceals behind smiles and ugly aegyo – he’s always distant enough to make Mino crave for raw closeness, and now Mino knows too well why it hurts so much to not have him. But today every feeling his obvious on his face, in his furrowed brow and tense shoulders and nervous hands, and Mino can’t help himself.

“Are you ok?” it comes out squeaky, voice cowardly cracking just when Mino wants it to be steady. 

“I thought we weren’t talking”, Seungyoon doesn’t look at him, his whole body curled over the bowl of milk and cornflakes he’s supposedly eating. _It hurts a lot._ Mino feels guilty and betrayed all at once, but doesn’t complain as he sits across from him and looks at his jittery moves.

“I know I’ve been an ass. I’ve been… busy”. Every justification sounds wrong in his ears, he doesn’t want to think how weak they seem to Seungyoon. “But I’m always here for you when needed. You can talk about anything you want, you know, that wouldn’t be a first”.

“I don’t want to talk about it, not with you”. It sounds like an end, just when Mino is trying to find a new beginning, a bridge between them. It takes him all his patience to not yell at him, because he knows he’s in the wrong this time.

“Let me take a guess”, Mino tries to joke, Seungyoon’s eyes darts to him, and he quiets down. If he didn’t know him he would think that Seungyoon is angry at him and him only, but he can see it’s not just that. Seungyoon would never stop him from talking to him, after all these weeks of silence, he would never refuse an apology. He’s tolerant enough to accept him as he is. Mino knows that this time it isn’t a matter beyond them. He fears…

“It’s my own problem so I’ll solve it by myself” – it sounds like the biggest lie Seungyoon has ever said, like he needs it to get up from the chair and walk away, last ounce of courage for someone who never admits defeat. 

 

 

Knowing his state of mind, Mino can’t help but sticking around a little more. He’s spent so much time away from him that he has lost touch with everything that counted besides his newly defined love. He’s been a bad friend to Seungyoon, he knows, for a reason that Seungyoon can’t even suspect.

That’s the first time that he _hears_ him. It comes in the softest cry, muffled by the walls dividing them, probably by Seungyoon’s hand too. It’s a small sound, almost a whisper, but it resonates within Mino like not even a screaming crowd can. 

Mino can’t remember the last time he has seen Seungyoon crying – maybe it’s when they were in high school and everything was so difficult, but in a very different way. Mino remembers the insults written on Seungyoon’s books, on his desk, on his chair, he remembers the faint purple bruises on his chest when he wasn’t fast enough to avoid them, and he remembers the tears he let out once, when they were walking home. Mino recalls that’s when he decided to never let this happen again.

This time there is no one to fight. They aren’t kids anymore, it doesn’t come as easy as before, it doesn’t come easy at all to him. Mino is scared to death of his own feelings, of what they could do to their friendship, and he’s aware they have already tarnished part of it. 

He listens to his dulled crying from across the wall and lets it sink inside him. Somewhere deep inside, he feels the urge to stop this. He doesn’t want it to happen ever again, he doesn’t want Seungyoon to ever feel bad to the point he’ll tear up. Mino is still the same person he was few years ago, but he doesn’t have the same tactless courage to act without considering the other person’s feelings.

 

 

He asks Jinu hyung instead. The truth doesn’t come out as a surprise to him, just like another disappointment. He stores it within him with scorching anger, feeling almost ready to burst. 

 

 

He has now lost count of the times he has seen Seungyoon’s eyes red of tears and that’s something Mino doesn’t know how to handle. It’s him the cry-baby, not Seungyoon. Even in the hardest moments, he has always kept his composure. It was almost nerve-wracking, how calm he could look despite all the shit happening. 

Mino is not good with waiting for him to talk, he’s not good at leaving him alone, but he tries. He still feels partially guilty for everything he has done – for his heart, too – and it’s somehow easier to keep being the coward of the situation for once. Seungyoon needs his time, he thinks, and when he is ready he’ll come to him. Mino wants to… give Seungyoon the space he always requested from him. 

But Seungyoon doesn’t get any better in that given time. Mino knows he spends all this free time at home, mostly in his room, unless he’s at work; and he hasn’t met anyone in the band in two weeks, not contacting them at all. Mino guesses he wastes those hours sleeping, but when night comes he can always hear him trashing around his room, mumbling and cursing and sobbing softly. 

It’s just driving him crazy. This is not the Kang Seungyoon he knows, no matter how much his heart is breaking. This is not the Song Mino he thinks he is, too, not even one bit. 

Mino decides to act in a rush of worry when he hears a loud thump coming from the bathroom and Seungyoon cursing under his breathe. He raps on the locked door like his life depends on it, and when Seungyoon yells at him he just whines his best dramatic impersonation. “I need to pee, you idiot”.

Seungyoon opens few moments later, his body wrapped in a bathrobe. Mino is distracted for a short instant – his hair damp and curly on his forehead, drops of water still dotting his bare face – before he notices the blood on his hand and sees the crack on the mirror hanging over the basin. 

“You’re a fucking idiot – you asshole!” he shrieks at that sight, fighting against the repulsion he has of blood to grab at his forearm. Seungyoon bats him away, pushing him afar – Mino swears at loud once more, suddenly upset by such rejection, but Seungyoon doesn’t seem minding it. 

“Yes I am… a fucking idiot”, he says more to himself than Mino, staring at the smear of blood on his pale knuckles, his hand shaking as much as his voice. Mino can hear the tears in it. He lets him talk. “I’m an asshole, you’re right. I screwed it all up… I let everyone down – I let myself down, I did… I fucked up just like you said I would – I let… let it come through us and now we’re done – everyone is fucking done with this shit, and it’s all my fault”.

Mino knows what he’s talking about and tries to understand his blabbering. He is fully aware that Seungyoon and Taehyun didn’t split up in the best terms, they argued with bare teeth until their relationship was entirely screwed, and he knows this is going to break the band apart. It will destroy them for sure, if the leader doesn’t pick up every piece and put them together again. 

“You can’t be serious – Kang Seungyoon, I know you better than I know myself”, Seungyoon shakes his head like to say he doesn’t, Mino doesn’t care. “You need to be yourself, your calm, your smart self – you know you need him in the band, you know how much he matters for the music you’re making together – it… it hurts now, but you can overcome it all if you want”. Mino can’t believe he just said it at loud.

Seungyoon’s sob is obvious now and he tries to choke it behind his fist. Mino wants to wrap his arms around him and lull him in his hug, but Seungyoon won’t let him touch him. “I fucking _know_ I need him. We were good but not good enough before him. It’s – it’s a matter of balance, I know, a matter of making great music. But we can’t work together anymore – ” he shakes his head again, fingers pressing against his cheeks to wipe the tears away. “We can’t. We can’t. We fucking can’t – we can’t – I”

_I can’t. I can’t work with someone that hurt me so much, I can’t admit defeat, I can’t compromise, I won’t._

He sounds broken and scared and terribly wrecked – anything that’s not Kang Seungyoon at all, not the person Mino loves. It freaking hurts. His voice is laced with pain as well. “I fucked up, me, it’s me, Kang Seungyoon. No one else but me. I’m the leader, you know it. I shouldn’t have feelings when it’s just work, I shouldn’t have been involved with a member, no matter how much I cared – my happiness shouldn’t come first”.

Mino wants to destroy Taehyun. Piece to piece, until nothing is left. He doesn’t care how much he must be upset about the break up, how it must have hurt him too, it can’t be worse than this. It can’t be worse than Kang Seungyoon breaking apart in front of him. 

Mino can’t believe his own words when he says them – he must love Seungyoon more than he can imagine, with all his soul, to be this forgiving. “If you cared this much, you can’t let him go now. Even if you aren’t together anymore, you know his value. You did great at your first gig, you are starting to have a fanbase… people love the music you do. And… as a leader you chose him for a reason that’s unrelated to your feelings. You can’t cut him out from your lif-”

“I will! I will until I’m able to breathe again. I will learn from this. I will erase him from my memory and my heart until I’m strong again” – he’s practically yelling at this point, his eyes boring at Mino with an intensity he can’t remember. Hatred and fire burn in his stare.

“Is that the right solution? Fuck, Seungyoon, I know you enough to be sure this is not what you really want for the band – it comes first, that and your music, it can’t be the same without him”. Mino isn’t even able to explain why he insists so much, when he should probably console him instead of attacking him. Maybe he’s not ready to talk about his own fucks up, and maybe he’s afraid of a world where Seungyoon regrets his own choices. “I won’t let you ruin yourself! This is not you”.

“What the fuck do you know about me?”, his scream is ugly, cutting deeply Mino and him at the same time. “If I have to set my heart on something, I will try hard until I manage to do it. I won’t run away, I won’t falter”.

“You’re just heartbroken. You know better than anyone else that you can’t let Taehyun g-“ 

“You don’t even know what he told me – he’s the one letting me go, and he’s doing the right thing – I fucking screw it up all the times, all the fucking times because – I can’t move on from – I wasn’t able to love him like I should – _I fucking hate you_ , I hate you”, he tries to fight the tears once more, hands quick to wipe them away, “ I fucking hate you, Song Mino, you always pester me without leaving me room to breathe, you suffocate me, you never leave my side – I fucking-”

That stings like nothing else could – Seungyoon saying those words to him. Mino is upset, he can feel blood boiling under his skin, threatening him of a riot. Does he deserve all of that, when he’s the one who tried to give him space in the past weeks? And before that, he wasn’t even available, avoiding him with all his might as he didn’t want to face his own feelings. Does he deserve all of this, when he’s just a fool in love?

“Don’t you like having a dog like me at your lap?” Mino’s voice sound distant with suppressed anger, surprisingly cold as he speaks. “Don’t you love to have me when someone wants to hurt you? When I took those punches for you? When I didn’t complain you blew up our cover and those tugs hit me until I bled? Don’t you love to have a dog at your lap, someone like me? I’ll stay even if you treat me like shit, I won’t bite your hand”.

Those words sound enormous in the tiny steamy space of their bathroom. Seungyoon hisses at that, inching closer as he fumes with indignation, his index finger tapping at Mino’s chest. 

“You are an asshole, Mino – I have never asked for you to get hurt for me. You know I hate it. I could live way better without you…”, he’s worked up as much as Mino in his own rage and his hands snake upward, pulling at his collar with strength, blood smearing on his t-shirt. They stare at each other in tense silence and Mino is suddenly aware of the proximity, their bodies almost touching as Seungyoon jerks at his t-shirt. The smell of blood is faint against his nose, like a distant disturbance he can’t bother with.

It’s his turn to talk, they both know, his moment to replay to those words, argument after argument until they have no more voice to speak. Instead, Mino looks at his eyes red with tears and his mouth, redder than he remembers, and he can’t think when he just grabs at the sides of his face and plants a kiss on his lips. 

His fingers shake with anger and fear as he fists them into his damp hair. Seungyoon lets out a choked word against his mouth, something he can’t understand as he shoves another kiss onto him. It’s just too much to handle, Mino is no good with such things.

Why can’t Seungyoon understand, for once? Why will he let himself destroy all he has for a matter of pride? He’s fought so much to get where he is and for once he’s found the band he needs to do the music he likes, and that must counts more than a badly-ended relationship. It has to. 

He expects Seungyoon to push him away so he’s dumbfounded when he feels his arms hooking around him to push him _closer_ – Mino just forgets how to reason at once, his whole being focused on Seungyoon’s mouth against his own, his hands scraping at his nape, his bathrobe brushing against the bare skin of his arms. Mino gasps at the hotness of his kisses, unable to stop as they stumble on the tiled floor. 

He had no idea it could be this good. He had no idea this could – is this even real? Seungyoon feels so good against him, his limbs melting in his embrace, his whole body splayed over Mino as he kisses him back. It must be some sort of heaven, something so perfect Mino couldn’t imagine until he tasted it. It sends shivers down his spine, and fire pooling in his belly.

Mino needs air – Seungyoon’s teeth bite at his bottom lip – Mino needs to breathe, he needs –his fingers grip at the base of his hair, pulling, Seungyoon’s voice changing in a whimper – he needs so much, so much – Seungyoon’s tongue darts over his lips, teasing – Mino pulls away, breathless and shocked as he realizes what he has just done. 

Seungyoon’s eyes are blown with warm desire, all the fire of earlier replaced by another kind of sparkle. He pants hardly, against his skin, and every breathe he takes make Mino ache inside for the want. How could he even be blind all this time, he wonders, when this is like nothing he has experienced before, no matter how many girls he had?

“I thought you…” “You…” “Yeah, I thought you…”, they talk over each other without saying anything, their minds miles away as they finally take in what has just happened. Seungyoon’s weight shifts over him, even if he doesn’t roll away from him, and Mino props himself on his elbows to move in a better position. 

“I had no idea you – you are straight, aren’t you?”, Seungyoon can’t hide the surprise, his fingers brushing on his bottom lip as to remember the touch of Mino’s lips – _this is going bad, bad, bad, Mino._

This will complicate everything. Ruin their friendship, probably. Mino should feel fear but all he can see is an opportunity, and he’s more elated than anything else. “Even if I wasn’t… you said you had standards, Kang Seungyoon, yet you kissed back!”, he retorts after few instants, managing to sound not as smitten as he is. This is a total mess, a colossal disaster. 

Seungyoon sighs and drifts away, sitting on the floor as he tries to collect himself again, hands pulling at his bathrobe so that he’ll be fully covered. Mino already misses his weight on him, his warmth against his skin. “It’s a long story…”, he pouts with the lips Mino has just kissed.

“We have all night. I still have to convince you to not screw your band even more than you already did – without going back with Taehyun, though”. He just can’t help the smirk, he’s seriously a first class idiot. He deserves the summa cum laude at the University of Helpless Idiocy. 

“Asshole – you took advantage of me in a moment of clear weakness”. The insult sounds way more affectionate than the precedent times, and Seungyoon sounds more like himself than he did the past two weeks. The tears at his eyes are now dried, and it looks like he’s finally ready to talk like a proper human being, with his heart on his sleeves and the decency of moderating all the swearing. Mino can’t help but think this is not really the end, but the beginning he was looking for. 

**Author's Note:**

> Rock bands always get screwed by internal issues, yeah. Love, girlfriends, shit. Money when they're famous.


End file.
